(John Rawson wrote;- ) Straight
to your second point. Because I can't build roads to a sufficient
standard, can't bribe my own police, run border controls or build hospitals.
(Joe replies:- ) Could
you currently do those things through financing them from
straight taxation without there being an increase in overall ‘debt’
in the country as a whole? If you could do that,
would your country not be in debt up to its collective eyeballs, and
beyond? Isn’t it more that you
CAN’T do that? Nor can any other
modern country?
Look at your ‘taxes’. If they’re deducted from labour ‘incomes’ (of individuals) they’re already included in the ‘prices’ of consumables. Since it’s the ‘gross’
income before the tax is deducted that forms part of cost, not the just the
‘net’ pay you take home. If
there’s already a ‘disparity’ between the overall rate of income generation and that of price
generation due primarily to ongoing ‘labour displacement’ and a
falling change in the ratio of A to A+B, what
happens?
Taxes are much beloved by Bankers, (long as
they’re not singled out unduly to pay them!) , because they remove
immediate purchasing power from the hands of consumers. And making ‘money’ scarce in
this manner tends to increase its ‘value’ in relation to what it
will buy. It makes the Banker’s
income, his ‘interest’’ which he will receive over the life
of the loan, more valuable to him, even if the ‘interest rate’ on
loans being made may decline. (This is
the same as with any other merchant ~ the decline in price (of
‘money’, in this case), broadens the market. You can’t ‘profit’ until
you ‘sell’. Nor can the
Banker, until he ‘loans’.
Bankers are normally ‘deflationists’, as Douglas told us.
To us though, even if ‘taxes’ were
supposed to keep consumer prices
‘down’ (which they really don’t), they just make it more
difficult for us to acquire what we need and want. Since we don’t have the
‘money’ necessary to take advantage of acquiring consumables to the
extent it’s been removed from us by taxation. Unless we ‘borrow’ it, as
‘consumer credit’, that is.
And the businesses nowadays couldn’t exist without that. The only real answer to this is to augment
consumer incomes with debt-free CONSUMER credits sufficient to maintain A in
constant ratio to A+B through time.
Taxes might then be for the provision of ‘services’ best
provided through ‘Government’, and with the restoration of adequate
purchasing power directly to consumers
through crediting them fully with ongoing ‘capital appreciation’
through the CPD and ND, (including that of Government infrastructure, if
it’s sensible and useful and increases the ‘real credit’ of
the community), could be restored to that proper function to the extent
they’re still necessary.
And I believe very strongly that the function of
hospitals, for example, is to care for the sick, not to make a profit for
entrepeneurs. That's borne out in England where just making the cleaning
of hospitals come into that category, so that the aim is no longer to keep
hospitals clean, has resulted in periodical closures because of "H
bugs" etc.
(Joe replies;-) There are several interesting issues
here. On the surface, on a
‘moral’ basis, I agree with you. It seems to me to be ‘morally’
wrong to believe there should be anyone ‘profiting’ from the
misfortune of anyone else’s injury or illness. But ‘economically’ is a
‘doctor’ also an ‘entrepreneur’, or is he not?
If he cannot make a “price for his product in excess of his
costs” ~ a ‘profit’, actually ~ could he remain in practice
long? Would he remain in practice
long? And would there really be any
incentive to enter medicine as a career in the first place? To go through all the training, to work the hours,
to do that very kind of demanding work, to assume the very real
‘liability’ (not to mention the ‘legal’ one that might
follow!) that in trying to ‘do no
harm’ a mis-diagnosis, or ‘off-day’ with the scalpel or other
tools of the trade might cause?
‘Altruism’ there may be in many of
us, and give me a doctor who has a genuine interest in his profession and
treating his patient over one who’s just there ‘for the
bucks’ any time I’ve need of one, but we certainly can’t
‘demand’ someone practice medicine just solely ‘for the good
of mankind’, and restrict him to no more than his physical sustenance for
so doing , can we? Would any of us do
the same thing, day in and day out, for
that? Maybe there are those amongst us
who would. But should any of us ‘be
forced’ to do the same thing for that?
‘Socialists’ seem to think so. Which begs the question, “What else do
they think anyone else should be ‘forced’ to do?”
For if that ‘policy’ is to be
applied to ‘doctors’, it certainly isn’t going to end there. Now to go beyond the MD’s themselves,
the business of cleaning hospitals should most certainly be done by those who
know how to do it, and are paid wages
commensurate with the very real risks they incur in pursuing that
occupation. We’ve witnessed the
very same thing in ‘privatisation’ here, and it is both a false
saving, and fraught with the same problems you allude to. The ‘problem’ is trying, once
again, to ‘re-distribute’ an insufficiency. And it can’t be
solved the way current governments are trying to pursue it.
Now to look at another
side of the issue, ‘profit’ in modern double-entry accountancy is
not analogous to the ‘cash’ profit that might ensue in a simple
‘barter’ type of transaction where ‘money’ is actually
being used as a ‘medium of exchange’. Rather ‘profit’, or change in it,
is an indication of the correctness of some entrepreneurial action. And I believe this has some application in
regards to ‘medicine’ and the provision of overall ‘medical
services’. In North America there has been a long-standing debate over the
virtues of ‘public’ ( supposedly non-profit ) medical services
versus ‘private’ (for profit) ones. One thing that seems to be overlooked in the
debate by those on the ‘public’ side is the
‘patient’. Doctors
don’t treat ‘disease’, they treat
‘patients’. When you try to
pre-determine what ‘diseases’ need to be treated by
‘bureaucratic’ fiat instead of actual ‘patient’ necessities
you’re bound to get inefficient application of available human and
physical resources, higher costs, and endless waiting lists that can only be
shortened by those on them expiring.
And, from observation, that’s exactly what we do get with
‘socialised medicine’.
‘Profit’, it seems to me, and regarding it in the
‘double-entry’ sense’ could actually be beneficial in
determining just what ‘services’ are most in demand, and in
attempting to satiate that demand.
Presently, there will problems with this approach. But not from ‘profit’, per se,
but from the current deceptive ‘money system’ that a proper
application of ‘genuine’ Social Credit could correct.
And dealing with your third point, you still have not
demonstrated any mechansm to prevent retailers gradually increasing the price,
steadily subsidised all the way at 2% as it climbs. Please don't quote
competition, which only works to hold prices down when there is difficulty
selling goods etc. If all your timber was going out as fast as it was produced,
even a good honest man like you would begin to wonderr if all his hard work
didn't really merit a little better return, in slightly higher prices.
And believe me, the timber industry in NZ has had the structure of a jungle in
the past, and I can't see it having changed too much.
Is there not always
‘difficulty’ in selling goods when the capacity to produce them
exceeds the ability to consume them? And
we have to ‘pay’ for the provision of that ‘capacity’,
but we’re not ‘credited’ fully financially for it’s creation? Or is the “progress of the industrial
arts a complete fraud?” Most
retailers are interested in moving product.
They could put up the price and wait for a buyer who’ll meet it,
but while they’re waiting they’ve got ‘costs’ of their
own that are ongoing. And the
‘profit’ they might make selling a very few items, though it may
well be larger per item than that of the
merchant who moves his goods in volume
for a lower price, is diminishing from these ‘costs’ each day that
product sits unsold. The real ‘competition’
generally doesn’t come from those who do the same thing you do, only
charge the public ‘more’ for it, but from those who do the same
thing you do and charge the public ‘less’. If you were making a pile of money from
growing Callas and other tropicals, how long before every other Northland Kiwi with a little
piece of your Island’s real estate and a horticultural bent would be
trying the same thing? And what happens
to the market then? If you’re not
making a pile of money from growing them, why not? To keep just that from happening, no?
In lumber, the return
generally has always been ‘on volume’. Trying to get the ‘costs’ down
relative to it. Sure we try to sneak the
‘price’ up whenever we’re able to, but using the CPD to
subsidise a ‘raise’ in prices to Consumers just wouldn’t
work. The greater problem would be
ensuring that the ‘big boys’ didn’t use it to unfairly
subsidize predatory pricing, to try to eliminate the competition through
‘lower’ prices that couldn’t be matched. There would have to be an agreed upon
minimum profit on ‘turnover’, (not on ‘capital’), but I
don’t think that would be hard to obtain, police, or enforce. If they want ‘more’ profit, then,
they have to find a way to engender a still higher turnover. Which should mean ‘better service’,
and more innovativeness in ‘reducing costs’.
RE: [socialcredit]
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